Raw recap and reactions: Rocky promises

Cody Rhodes broke The Rock’s heart, Sami Zayn makes good on his promise, and Damian Priest gets his first challenger on the latest Monday Night Raw.

The Rock vs. Cody Rhodes. That’s something in the distance. How far? If I knew that, I’d be a billionaire instead of writing about wrestling. But that’s one of the main takeaways from Raw’s opening seconds forty-five minutes. And in typical fashion, they left a mystery for us to detangle.

Let’s start at the beginning. Triple H thanked the crowd, got his props, then invited Cody to the ring. After lauding Cody, we got into business. Rock’s music hit when Cody finished his passionate promo about his journey to this point, his family, and the type of champion he will be as he leads everyone into a new era.

Cody can be a bit too saccharine for me, which is saying something because I’m a sap. Rock’s music hit at the right time. Loved Philly’s energy. They didn’t let Rocky utter a word, much less a sentence. He eventually called them several naughty words I’m sure the censors loved. The problem though is it dragged on what was already a very long segment by that point. Once Cody settled everyone back down, he and Rocky continued, making it even longer.

It was a lot of words but it boiled down to Rocky respecting Cody and congratulating him. While his story with Roman Reigns is over, the story between him and The Rock is just beginning. Rock’s not sure when he’ll be back but when he returns, he’s coming straight for the American Nightmare. Surprising no one, Cody can’t wait for that.

That’s when Rock gave Cody something out of his pocket and left him with these words: “Don’t you ever break my heart again.”

I guess is that had something to do with their conversation after the Rumble that set the last few months in motion, but I’ve been wrong before. It was a great hook for a segment that needed a little extra given the time and the awkwardness that came from watching them hold each other’s belts.

I also assume that whatever Rock gave Cody is Dusty Rhodes related. Only something belonging to his dad would make Cody look that emotional.

I liked parts of how the show started but it dragged for me. I’ll miss seeing this version of The Rock and think there’s something magical between he and Cody. But I’m also glad he’s off the board so Cody can focus on his first true test as champion.

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B-Sides

Can’t Punk Me

Drew McIntyre looked foolish at WrestleMania. He got his shot at redemption on this week’s Raw but unfortunately, he fell for the banana in the tailpipe again.

The Fatal 4 Way between Drew. Jey Uso, Bronson Reed, and Ricochet had the highest stakes: Winner gets a match with Damian Priest for the World Heavyweight championship. Bronson comes in with his Andre the Giant Battle Royal win, Jey just bested his brother, and Ricochet had a hot solo streak going. Drew was the only person not feeling himself.

Props to the opening moments where Drew came to the ring for the match and basically put everything on hold to cut a promo. He gave Seth his props, threw some weird shots at Damian (“Bondage Undertaker”), and of course saved so much fire for CM Punk. I loved Jey cutting him off mid speech for various reasons. One, it was getting late and after two long nights in a row, yeah, wrap it up. B, it kept their beef cooking, and lastly, it set the urgency for the match.

Once all four men assembled, well, it was chaos. I hate going blow for blow with chaotic matches but I will pick a few highlights.

Drew vs. Bronson. Meaty men slapping meat.

Jey and Ricochet’s Superkick Party on Drew before asking Bronson to join in on their reindeer games.

Ricochet taking an insane dive off the top rope for a 450 on Bronson, who laid lifeless on the Spanish announce table. He didn’t get all o fit, so he apologized to Samantha for that. He may have ruined her chance at having kids. Let’s hope he’s OK.

The match came down to Drew and Jey, which was perfect. And right when Drew had Jey dead to rights, Punk crawled out from under the ring and interrupted his Claymore. Jey took advantage and now he gets Damian, along with the rest of The Judgment Day.

Really dope main event where any winner was a possibility. But props to them for throwing in Punk at the last second. That should only fuel Drew’s rage and make their build pretty incredible.

From Russia With Love

It’s the Raw After Mania, which means surprises are certainly a thing. Shinsuke Nakamura made his way to the ring without an announced opponent. Although, to be fair, Raw’s first segment almost went a full hour, so they didn’t get a lot of time to announce much. While Shinsuke waited in the ring, a few notes familiar to the NXT faithful echoed once again throughout Philly and the NXT champ, Ilja Dragunov, orchestrated his entrance.

They didn’t get a lot of time so this served as an appetizer to what these two can do together. Two cats this physical need a lot more time but hey, it’s a packed Raw with a lot of business on its mind.

Shinsuke started fast with a foot to the mouth, a perfect welcome to Raw for the Mad Dragon. Shinsuke stayed on top because any Ilja match demands he endure. It’s not enough for him to win; he has to become Andy Dufresne and crawl through a river of expletive for the victory to mean anything. So once he slowed the match down, he, ahem, wrestled control away from Mr. Strong Style. After a back and forth, Ilja found an opening with Shinsuke missed a Kinshasa attempt. The champ finished Shinsuke with an H Bomb/Torpedo Moscow combo.

That’s all she wrote.

Solid but short match. But a good way to introduce Ilja to a larger audience a couple weeks before the draft on April 26 & 29.

Chief Rocka

Speaking of NXT champs, Roxanne Perez showed up for a very quick match against Indi Hartwell. They did multiple things with this match: Roxanne got her revenge for possibly the inciting indecent that set her on this dark path, and it pushed Candice LeRae further away.

Nothing much to it. Roxanne dominated and Candice looked on with disgust.

Game Theory

We’re one step closer to Sami Zayn giving Chad Gable a shot at the Intercontinental championship. Sami cut his victory promo while rocking a shirt I desperately need. Just before giving Sami his props, IMPERIUM cut Sami off and did their usual disrespectful thing. Chad came to Sami’s side and a tag match ensued.

This match got more time than most other matches on the card to this point, which makes sense given the need to develop tag chemistry between Sami & Chad. Putting them against IMPERIUM checks out given their credibility and beef with both men.

For the most part, it worked as a standard tag match between good guys and bad guys. The match turned when IMPERIUM thought they neutralized Sami and went all in on Chad. Sami broke up the IMPERIUM Bomb and the newly formed team delivered a pair of triple German Suplexes. If it makes more sense to you, they did triple Germans in stereo. Sami then delivered an Ankle Lock while Chad coached him. That was a nice touch and actually a bit sweet.

The finish came when Sami teed up the Helluva Kick but tagged Chad instead. He still delivered the kick and in a nice touch, the impact of Giovanni Vinci hitting the turnbuckles caused him to bounce right into Chad’s arms for Chaos Theory.

Solid match, nothing more nothing less. And afterward, Sami gave Chad his match. Next week in Montreal, Chad gets another shot at the Intercontinental championship.

All I need is for one of them to tell the other to ring the bell, ten someone else to say “ding.”

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Singles

• R-Truth interrupted Judgement Day’s victory promo. The fiend. But it gave way to a handicap match between Awesome Truth and Finn Balor, Dirty Dom, & JD McDonagh. Then that morphed into a six-man tag when John Cena joined Truth & Miz! Always fun seeing Cena, even in a comedy match that made Judgment Day look kinda weak in a moment where they should look dominant.

• Speaking of Judgment Day….Liv Morgan threw a chair at Rhea Ripley. Let me repeat: Liv Morgan threw a chair at Rhea Ripley. I know this stuff is staged but man that looked painful. She blindsided Rhea in the hallway, then slapped fire out her for what feel like two straight minutes. The revenge tour added more dates as Rhea gets her post-Mania challenger.
• Speaking of dominant, Jade Cargill beat Chelsea Green without breaking a sweat. My feelings on Jade are well known around the Cageside offices; I like her a lot and think she’s awesome. But as I wrote this weekend, I wonder if she hit her ceiling. All the training in AEW combined with the months training behind the scenes in WWE and she’s still doing these short spots or short matches. I hope she’s capable of more but it’s hard ignoring the facts.

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Fun and fast-paced Raw After Mania. Well, once we got past the opening. Not as many surprises as I figured, and a lot of quick matches. But an entertaining show nonetheless that still but wheels in motion for future matches.

What say you, Cagesiders?